


Brilliantine

by Shirokokuro



Series: If That Happens, I'll Catch You [11]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman Beyond
Genre: Alfred Pennyworth is a Good Grandpa, Angst, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Drabble, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Good Parent Alfred Pennyworth, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Non-Consensual Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicidal Thoughts, Implied/Referenced Torture, No Plot/Plotless, Post-Joker Junior, Whump, bruce's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 09:46:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19850596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shirokokuro/pseuds/Shirokokuro
Summary: The stare is penetrating, intense. Bruce isn’t sure what to do with it.





	Brilliantine

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Joker Junior fic, so that means certain elements of it are pretty dark. The warnings are up in the tags for you all. Take care of yourselves out there. <3

The stare is penetrating, intense. Bruce isn’t sure what to do with it. It’s better if he tries to avoid it, and truly, he does his best to. The task isn’t easy when the eyes keep following him, memorize each key-click Bruce makes at the computers or the way Bruce walks away from behind.

They’re odd things—the eyes—nearly iridescent. Sometimes Bruce sees them blue. Sometimes they’re green. Once, even, when Bruce caught them quickly enough, they were dusted in cochineal, brayed corpses that shone rich as rubies.

Bruce doesn’t return the gaze much, though. Hardly exists in the same space as the boy.

Alfred is the one who keeps watch of him. Gently grasps for little hands before leading Tim around the Manor. Bruce can hear bare feet pad along the floorboards early in the morning, footprints left on the polished sheen that only show when the sun hits them. Alfred settles Tim down in the study—what used to be his favorite spot—or directs him to the grass outside the veranda so that he can admire the bees between the flowers.

Alfred thinks the boy enjoys the fresh air. Tim never tells them otherwise.

That’s just how he is now: At the end of the day, Tim is nothing more than the picture of obedience. When they set food in front of him, he eats. When they put him to bed, he sleeps. A perfect puppet shorn of its strings. It’s why Bruce knows right now that if he tells Tim to sit, the boy will do exactly that.

And Tim does.

He situates himself in the desk chair Bruce gestures to without hesitation. The glow of the Cave’s computer banks shine along white sclerae, the rectangular monitors showing so cleanly on them that Bruce thinks he could work purely off of Tim’s eyes. But that’s not what Bruce wants to do. He only wants to feel Tim nearby and nothing more.

Tim is in Bruce’s care for the night while Alfred rests. Bruce isn’t sure how he feels about being in charge of the boy, hasn’t been since they found him ten days ago.

( _Saved him_ , they all say. Just to feel better about themselves.)

(They didn’t save Tim at all.)

Sure, the boy looks better than he did before. The emerald in his hair has been reduced to mere strands, an occasional glint in the black, and Alfred bathes him daily, still working to coax the white off porcelain skin. Alfred says it does Tim good, and Barbara agrees. They need to reteach him that touch shouldn’t translate to pain. But then again, that doesn’t seem to be the problem with Tim. It’s as if he’s numb to any sensation at all.

Bruce scrolls upward on the computer, the mouse wheel grinding in the quiet.

Tim watches.

They’re still looking for a doctor. For a specialist or anyone who knows more about mental illness than they do. Finding someone that Tim could be honest with about being Robin—about having _been_ Robin—cuts the potential therapists down to nil.

Bruce still looks through the options anyway, mask pulled back to reveal a tired face. Clark recommended someone in Metropolis, and her file is impressive. Trustworthy. Bruce tries to imagine the way she would interact with Tim, but it’s only a superficial image. Sessions of silence. Medleys of drugs. Bruce winces internally when his brain conjures up electrotherapy, and he scrambles to block out the memories.

_We have Tim back now._

_He’s safe_.

Bruce has to keep telling himself that.

The man leans back fully in his own chair, curves his neck along the head, before titling his gaze the boy’s way.

Bruce is dimly surprised to find that Tim’s not looking at him. The child’s face is poised to the side, the line of a nose with irises tracing something in the air that Bruce already knows doesn’t exist. It’s something Tim does often: stares at nothing when he’s not staring at Bruce. The gaze is always just as intense.

“Tim,” Bruce says.

The boy doesn’t respond. He doesn’t anymore—not to that name. Not even to Robin.

“Come here,” Bruce restates, and a head flicks in his direction, the motion so precise it’s unnerving, unhuman. Like the action should snap his neck.

Orders are the only thing Tim reacts to anymore, and Bruce wonders at night if it was Joker who taught Tim that or himself.

The boy comes to him all the same, gait a bit awkward. He picks his knees up more than he used to, more than he should, and the pinch behind his kneecaps pulls the soft fabric of his pants. (“Loose and nonrestrictive,” Barbara had recommended while holding the pair up, a guilt in her eyes that she shouldn’t have but they all do anyway. She’d taken out the drawstring.) The shuffle of cloth echoes in the choked quiet, Bruce measuring the steps, perfect, equidistant, until Tim is positioned next to him with expectant eyes that make Bruce want to look away.

It’s not Tim’s eyes, really. That bother him.

It’s not his eyes at all.

The thing that bothers Bruce is the grin.

Tim just… He just never _stopped_ , and the expression looks so horribly wrong. Lips pulled apart to reveal bared teeth, a smile that ceases past the appling of his cheeks. His eyes are unaffected, an owl’s gaze on a boy’s face, and it triggers something in Bruce’s gag reflex whenever he sees the paradox. Not on Tim. Not on someone he was supposed to protect.

Bruce doesn’t know what to say to him. He already knows Tim won’t say anything back. The boy hasn’t spoken since they brought him back to the Manor, led him here like a little lamb, still sweet in some ways, already slaughtered in others. What’s most painful is that Tim doesn’t look at any of them with malice. Just blank eyes and a rictus that looks more tortured than joyful. It hurts that Bruce can’t remember what Tim’s normal smile looked like anymore. Part of him thinks he never knew at all.

The thought digs, so Bruce turns his chair until he’s facing the boy, bends forward to rest his elbows on his knees. They’re eye-level now, and Bruce forces himself to see Tim for what he is. He imagines that if the boy were himself, he would flinch a step back, would build distance between them like he was so oft to do.

Tim doesn’t do that now.

He merely tilts his head in interest.

The intrigue still sparks there when Bruce leans closer, just enough that their foreheads bump together, touch, and there’s an efflux of heat where the skin meets. Small clouds of exhales pass in the space between them. No words. Just existing.

Tim’s irises are blue-grey, Bruce can see now. A thunderhead beckoning a storm. They don’t blink, don’t betray anything beyond curiosity. Bruce can see his own reflection in Tim’s pupils, a mirror, and there’s something ironic there that stings.

It keeps Bruce up at night. It keeps him from facing this.

Tim isn’t Tim anymore.

They’ve scrubbed the physical damage off him with thankless determination, wrung the boy out and bleached the stains away only to find they’ve left him empty and blank. It’s almost worse than before, but they can’t go back now. They can still stitch him together, can rip off the worn patches and sow back in brilliantine, the way Tim used to be—should be, because they… They can still _fix_ this. They can.

It still stands that they never should have had to.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce breathes, barely even a sound. It’s a catchall for an army of apologies that agitate the air between them, a salvo in the silence more than a salve. Tim’s breaths margin the space too, puffs of warmth heaved out from little lungs, and Bruce doesn’t think he can handle looking at the boy anymore. He wants to see Tim, but there’s no one there. Nothing. He’s apologizing to a nothing for an everything.

“I’m so sorry,” Bruce repeats, hoping beyond hope that the words mean something, and right before he closes his eyes, Bruce imagines that the grin falters and the thunderhead breaks into rain.


End file.
